Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Title

Nature communications

Publisher

Nature Publishing Group

School

School of Science / Centre for Marine Ecosystems Research

RAS ID

29564

Grant Number

ARC Number : LE170100219, ARC Number : DE170101524

Comments

Saderne, V., Geraldi, N. R., Macreadie, P. I., Maher, D. T., Middelburg, J. J., Serrano, O., ... & Fourqurean, J. W. (2019). Role of carbonate burial in Blue Carbon budgets. Nature communications, 10(1), 1106. Available here

Abstract

Calcium carbonates (CaCO 3 ) often accumulate in mangrove and seagrass sediments. As CaCO 3 production emits CO 2 , there is concern that this may partially offset the role of Blue Carbon ecosystems as CO 2 sinks through the burial of organic carbon (C org ). A global collection of data on inorganic carbon burial rates (C inorg , 12% of CaCO 3 mass) revealed global rates of 0.8 TgC inorg yr −1 and 15–62 TgC inorg yr −1 in mangrove and seagrass ecosystems, respectively. In seagrass, CaCO 3 burial may correspond to an offset of 30% of the net CO 2 sequestration. However, a mass balance assessment highlights that the C inorg burial is mainly supported by inputs from adjacent ecosystems rather than by local calcification, and that Blue Carbon ecosystems are sites of net CaCO 3 dissolution. Hence, CaCO 3 burial in Blue Carbon ecosystems contribute to seabed elevation and therefore buffers sea-level rise, without undermining their role as CO 2 sinks. © 2019, The Author(s).

DOI

10.1038/s41467-019-08842-6

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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